The Brink and Back - Tinker of Fiction

[MetaBettaOmega]

I didn't miss my old life.

My old life was crap, honestly. A dead-end job with no respect. Barely making ends meet no matter how much overtime and second gigs I took. I had no time for friends and no energy to enjoy what little free time I had. I was stuck in a life that was becoming all too common for people my age. My only claim to success was that I had seen college for the scam that it was, and so I didn't have any college debt. I was still working the same jobs as everyone else who had gone to college, getting screwed out of my money just like them. I just didn't have a guillotine hanging over my head.

My old life sucked. Still, as much as I didn't miss it, I would have been tempted to go back to it if it had been an option.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I fantasized about adventure and power as much as the next guy… but actually getting my wish? Getting sent to a world that was a psychopath's wet dream? Not exactly a happy moment.

A streak of movement caught my eye, and I watched as the noon Metrorail streaked past my window, surprisingly quiet despite being so close. I could still hear and feel it, but it wasn't nearly as loud as I would have thought.

When the yellow streak was gone, I turned back to my apartment, focusing on the blue crystal I was fiddling with. It was surprisingly hefty for something the size of my thumb and gave off a faint blue glow. I knew in this state, it was harmless, even if it was warm to the touch. I closed my eyes for a moment, leaning back on the low couch, feeling the small, warm stone in my hand.

I didn't miss my old life, but this one was much more dangerous. It made me wish for something more boring, less lethal. The nine-to-five grind might have been brutal, but at least people pretended to not want me dead.

Two days ago, I woke up in a bed I didn't recognize but was somehow still familiar with. I could feel the knowledge of my new world, just enough information that I wouldn't be bumbling around like an idiot, separate from my own memories. I knew I would have them because I was told I would get them by a bunch of unspeakable eldritch entities. The less said about them, the better.

I had died, and they had offered me a new life, one where I would have access to great power. I, being the idiot I was, agreed without much thought. Who doesn't want great power and a new chance at life, right?

I realized how dumb I had been when they finished upgrading my intelligence, stuffing some basic info about an alternate Earth, and linking my brain to a multi-universal databank. I wasn't an idiot before, well, not really, but I definitely wasn't this smart either. It made realizing how dangerous this world really was a lot easier.

See, I knew this world. Not too well, but well enough to recognize it. I looked out my window again. I could see buildings, the street below, the Metrorail, and to the right, the corner of an overpass. Further away, I could see two towering buildings that I knew looked very similar to the one I was in. Megabuilding H3 and H4. Which put me at Wellsprings 708, Megabuilding H2.

I was in Cyberpunk 2077.

Well, Cyberpunk 2077 and three quarters. It was June, after all, which was important because the Arasaka heist that V and Jackie orchestrated was in April, and while I didn't know what happened in the DLC, or even the later three-fifths of the game, I did know Vik gave V a month to live, so several months meant they were definitely… well I didn't actually know how it ended, but it was way past the point that I could help.

See, I played Cyberpunk shortly after it came out. It was buggy, broken, and fell far short of what the company had promised, so I stopped playing it. Then, over time, they fixed the game. When Edgerunners came out, and when Phantom Liberty was released, everyone said it was fixed and that it was great. So, I tried to play it again, only to find out that a significant portion of the game's systems had been radically changed. The leveling, perks, cyberware, and more had been completely redone, leaving me feeling lost. I decided that I would have to restart to get a better feel for the systems and so I could appreciate it properly. But for some reason, I just never got around to it.

Looks like I'm getting around to it now.

I was stuck in a morally broken, murder-happy world where self-mutilation was the cool, hip thing to do. It was only one or two steps away from fucking Borderlands, for fucks sake!

I mean, don't get me wrong, as a videogame concept, chopping off your weak bits and replacing them with cool, shiny chrome is kinda cool. In real life, though? Not so much. No fucking way am I letting some random ripperdoc get even remotely close to me. I knew I could trust Vik not to screw me over or anything, but the idea of implanting something inside me that someone else could hack? That is so unacceptable it makes my skin crawl just thinking about it.

And let's not forget about the constant worry of Cyberpsychosis floating around. Cutting off perfectly good parts of your body and slamming on robot bits of questionable quality could not be good for your mental health. Mix in the very real possibility that the corporations that ran the planet were perfectly willing to do just about anything for profit, including release stuff that fucked with your head, maybe even drove you crazy...?

Safe to say, I was staying organic until I could either make my own cyberware or equivalent. Stuff I know is safe and unhackable. Truth be told, I had always been a bit iffy about limb/flesh replacements, even before they became a very real option in my life. The Adeptus Mechanicus always gave me the heebie-jeebies, too. I think, personally, I was more about enhancement than replacement. Just my luck that I get shoved into a world with a hard-on for replacement.

Luckily, the beings that put me here didn't stuff me with a neural link or cybereyes, which the in-world info that was downloaded into my brain knew damn near everyone had. Hell, I knew that if I left my apartment, I would need to carry a special device as sort of a security pass, or basically nothing would work for me.

I tossed the blue crystal into the air and caught it, my eyes going wide when what I had just done reached the conscious part of my brain. I very carefully leaned forward and placed the crystal on the coffee table, next to the device that made it, which was already busy making a second one.

I listened to the machine hum and vibrate for a moment before leaning back on the couch, sans crystal to fiddle with. I had spent the entire previous day making the device, and the day before dragging in deliveries of parts and materials. So far, the only good part about being in the Cyberpunk world was skipping the first part of being a tinker, making your first tools. I would certainly end up using those tools to make more, better tools, but at least I was able to skip the first part.

Plus, no dumpster diving for parts was nice, too. Not that that might not end up happening anyway.

Of course, I wasn't really a tinker, at least not like a tinker from Worm. I was a Tinker of Fiction, and the vast majority of what I could make was reproducible, solid, not black-boxed tech. The only exception to that was certain exotic materials that cropped up in some realities.

You see, across the multiverse, which I now knew was much more than a fanciful theory, different realities had unique materials. Those materials were often at the core of most, if not all, of that reality's most high-tech toys. Most of the tech from Mass Effect wouldn't work without Element Zero, and plenty of Star Wars tech wouldn't function without several exotic gasses, metals, and fuel sources.

So, according to the entities, I would basically tinker up a way to make those materials. Even materials that were supposedly impossible to synthesize, like the small, thumb-sized chunk of Elerium, Element 115 from XCOM, that was sitting on my table. I couldn't really explain exactly how the microwave-sized crystallization device on my coffee table worked, but it did. Even better, if anyone tried to repeat my process, it would fail, potentially catastrophically. But that was only a fraction of what the Tinker of Fiction was.

Basically, my brain was attached to a massive database. Every week, or two weeks if I held onto the specialization hard enough, I would "roll" for a new branch of tech. My current branch, as far as I could tell, was the human side of the XCOM, an amalgamation of the two modern XCOM games. The Elerium generator, which turned about four hundred dolla- eddies of chemicals and solvents, as well as a small, pin-head-sized industrial diamond, into Elerium crystals, was black-boxed. That meant that only I would be able to build a function version. Everything else beyond the specific material generators would be perfectly possible to reproduce.

The database itself was hard to describe. The best metaphor I could make was sort of like fog of war for an RTS game like Starcraft but in a slightly different order. At first, the map is completely black. I could push that black fog back by mentally exploring the tech tree, starting from my "base," the lowest levels of the tech tree, and working my way up. All I was doing, however, was revealing what I could build and a vague outline of its construction. Once I actually started to really focus on it by building the item, it was like placing a unit down into the grey fog. The details of that tech started to reveal themselves, and the further I went on the project, the more details I got. The exposed area wasn't just for that specific creation either. I was learning how it worked, which meant that once I re-rolled to a new branch, I would remember all of that information.

Technically, I could skip ahead in the tech tree and attempt to start building plasma weapons, but just from what I could see on the surface, through the grey fog, I knew I wouldn't get very far before I stalled out. It was too advanced, to the point that I didn't even understand the basic info I got through the "grey fog." I would need to work my way up to the higher branches of the tech tree.

Later, when I had a few trees under my belt, I would probably be able to skip ahead pretty far and immediately start working on more advanced things. Over time I would probably become the most powerful inventor on the planet, with knowledge from dozens of realities working together to produce advanced technology.

But that was far, far down the line, after I had time to learn and build myself up. Until then, I needed to survive first, and I needed resources. The body I had dropped into, which the entities had insisted wasn't a real person that I was taking over, had a surprisingly good chunk of eddies saved up. They would last for a bit, but not nearly as long as I would like. Which meant I would need to engage in the world at large. Even worse, my purchases would eventually get someone's attention.

This world had the same level of privacy as a public bathroom made of glass, which is to say, absolutely fucking none. I knew for a fact that any one of the several companies that held sway in Night City would have no issues swiping me up and "hiring me" to make tech for them. Sure, some of them would offer cash first, but if I said no…? Well, then, all bets were off. Most of them would kill me outright if it came down to it, just to keep me out of competitors' hands.

God, this world was fucked. It was like looking in a funhouse mirror version of my old world, where everything that was bad, corrupt, and broken became the new norm. Companies ran this city and the world at large, and their greed was consistent enough that you could set your watch to it. If I got on someone's radar before I was ready, my best chance would be to swallow my pride and hope I found an opportunity to escape later.

I couldn't even calm down and veg out by watching TV, because it was all shit! I don't know what the hell happened to this Earth, but their TV was like watching the most erratic and random TikTok video ever made, except it just kept going and going for a full TV episode. I hadn't had a chance to watch any movies yet, but I wasn't exactly confident they would be any better.

A muffled ping echoed through the apartment, startling me from my downward spiral. I took a deep breath and stood slowly, leaving the Elerium generator going but grabbing the already completed shard. I walked out of the sitting area, over to the door that led to the small side room, tapping the controls to open it, stepping into the only enclosed room in the small apartment.

In the game, V had turned this smaller room into an armory, but mine was a small workshop. There was a 3D printer tucked into the corner, a fabricator along the back wall, two tool chests, and a host of other tools, as well as a computer that was networked with the fabricator and 3D printer. There were even some basic supplies in various containers and drawers. All of it had been in the apartment when I first woke up here, and the fabricator and 3D printer had been essentially working nonstop since then.

Or at least they had been after I confirmed that they were not connected to any extra networks or the internet. Apparently, the entities responsible for my new life shared my paranoia because none of the equipment or tools had any logos, markings, or internet access. All of it was at the normal Cyberpunk level, but none of it seemed to be made here. As far as I could tell, they were snapped into existence the same way I was.

A quick inspection showed that both the fabricator and the 3D printer had completed their last jobs for my next project. I carefully extracted the chunks of metal from the fabricator and heavy-duty polymer pieces from the printer, carrying them to the workstation. There, separated and organized, were several dozen other parts, ready to be assembled. I grabbed a bag of screws, connectors, a soldering iron, and a pile of other parts before getting to work, sitting on the low stool and hunching over the table.

At this point, after spending so much time building the pieces and prepping the other parts, I knew this project pretty well, and I had learned quite a bit about how the laser weapons from XCOM worked. At least the human-made versions. The primary outstanding component was the power generation, which used Elerium. Essentially, the mysterious blue crystal released more energy than it took in, so charging it with a slight burst of radiation resulted in a substantial energy release. That's why it glowed. The radiation from the visible spectrum caused it to release more energy than it was absorbing. The XCOM specialists had a few theories on how the crystal managed to do that, but it seemed far beyond what I had learned so far.

Thankfully, I didn't need to understand it to use it.

I grabbed the Elerium crystal and a small cutting tool, using it to slowly flatten the edges of the crystal, making sure to capture as much of the dust as possible since I knew it would be useful soon. When I had cut the crystal to the perfect size, I set it aside and started to assemble the rest of the parts. It took about an hour and a half to finally put it together, including sliding the small, shaved-down piece of Elerium into the energy pack. It slid in against a small X-ray emitter, which I was very glad existed in this world because building my own would have been an incredible pain in the ass.

Even better, it was smaller than the one the XCOM plans fed my brain.

I finally screwed in the last part before turning over the new laser pistol in my hand. It looked extremely similar to the laser pistol from the first modern XCOM, but a bit slimmer since I was using a variety of parts that were technically more advanced than the XCOM reality. After a final test to make sure everything worked and I hadn't just made a fancy, shiny bomb, I flicked on the activator switch. The pistol hummed, and the transparent aluminum glass tube that functioned as the barrel gave off a deep red glow, lighting up the room like a glowstick. I knew I would cover those up with east sinks, both to increase the fire rate and block the light from giving away my position, but I couldn't deny it looked cool.

Even better, I could feel my understanding of its construction, the ins and outs of how everything about it worked, solidifying in my brain. It wasn't anything too advanced, mostly just a bit of material science, a chunk of knowledge about radiation, and some details about energy direction. The extent of XCOM know-how was the process of using X-Rays to stimulate the Elerium into releasing enough energy to fire a laser blast, but it was still something. It was an anchor to further knowledge, and with any luck, I would be able to push that even further over the next week and four days.

For now, it was time to work on the next step.

With my pistol completed and, more importantly, with the Elerium generator now working, it was time to get to work on the next big project, the second stage of material generation for the XCOM human tech tree.

Alien Alloy.

An alloy of several elements, three of which didn't exist on Earth, anything more advanced than the general level of my new sidearm would require the durable, multipurpose alloy. Even just the next step up from the pistol, the laser rifle, would require the alloy in order to redirect the considerable increase in energy output. I would need to set up another black-boxed generator, this time an alloy smelter, to produce what I needed.

Putting my pistol down on my workstation, I turned on my stool to face my computer. My Cyberpunk CAD program was already open when I activated the desktop, and the final designs for my pistol were on display. I quickly saved the blueprint to a palm-sized external hard drive, so I could grab it and run if necessary, before clearing it out completely from my computer. I then started a new file, quickly labeling it as the "Alien Alloy Smelter" before going to town.

The plans for the device, a tower about a foot wide, a foot deep, and four feet tall, was already clear in my head. I had spent the last hour contemplating it, resizing it a few times to better fit my workshop. It wouldn't be able to produce a ton of alloy, but since I was only producing stuff for myself, I really didn't need that much. Plus, the Elerium generation would be a solid bottleneck anyway. If there was anything I needed to scale up, it was that.

It took me about thirty minutes to fully plan out the metal skeleton of the device, then another twenty to work up plans for the ceramic plates that would line the inside of the smelter, as well as the receptacle for the finished molten alloy. When I was done, I selected the first part, stood up from the chair, and fed the fabricator a plate of metal. I quickly sealed the metal inside before activating the fabricator, watching through the see-through barrier as it got to work, cutting and trimming the plate.

When the fabricator was all set, I got to work on the forge internals, preparing the heating element, testing the thermometers for the smelter internals, as well as several other bits and pieces. If this were a general-purpose smelter, I would include nobs to adjust things, like the heat and maybe a timer, but as it was only going to be an Alien Alloy generator, there was no real reason to. A small programmable chip would control everything, and there would only need to be one setting.

The next few hours were spent browsing the internet for more materials, mostly parts and metal stock, ordering a batch for future projects since I already had everything I would need for the smelter. Occasionally, once every ten to fifteen minutes, I would need to pull out something from the fabricator or 3D printer, but that was it. After I had spent another three thousand eddies, my shrinking "savings" taking another hard hit, the fabricator finally got to one of the more intricate pieces, which would take a lot more time. Plenty of time to go and get something to eat.

With a groan, I stood up from my stool and stretched, my back cracking as I did. While I had plenty of what qualified as food for this world in the fridge, I knew that sitting inside for such a long time was going to start affecting my sanity eventually.

I grabbed the laser pistol I had just finished making, looking at it for a moment before shaking my head and deciding that, as much as I would like the extra firepower, I couldn't just show off my tech randomly. Instead, I walked out of my workshop and headed to the door, grabbing my belt holster off of the hanger. I pulled it around my hips before grabbing my Unity pistol, which came with my new apartment and life, and slid it to the hoster.

Suitably armed, I grabbed the little keyfob that acted as my stand-in for the basic neural link and stuffed it into my pocket. Then I stood in front of my door, just staring at it. After a few seconds, I let out a long sigh. Honestly, the fact that I was hesitating so much was concerning but expected. This world was so incredibly different from the one that I knew, and my only exposure to it was a hyper-violent video game.

"It's just down and out the front of the building, Jackson," I mumbled to myself. "There is always a police team down there. No one is going to try anything."

I let out another long breath before finally tapping the controls for the door, which slid open. I could feel my keyfob vibrate as it recognized I had left my apartment, the door sliding behind me as I stepped out, finally leaving my apartment for the first time in a few days.

I let out the breath I was holding, looking around the familiar space around me. As far as I could tell, every megabuilding's general shape was the same, which meant that between the extra memories I got from the eldritch horrors that sent me here and the hundreds of times I ran from V's apartment down to the first floor, I knew my way around alright.

I walked forward, ignoring my neighbors as I leaned on the concrete railing that ran along the inside of the megabuilding. I looked up and down, taking in the sights of my new home. Surprisingly, it wasn't as terrible as I had expected. Still not good, but I suppose the fact that this massive arcology was built in a slightly better area than the one V lived in counted for something Though, if I'm honest, that might be subjective, I've never really liked boxed in areas with towering building surrounding them.

I pushed off the railing and made my way down to the floor below, weaving in between people as I cut a path to the nearest elevator. I could already smell several vendors around as I worked my way through, but I ignored them. As bleak and broken as the environment was on this planet, I wanted to see the sky. It hardly counted as getting out of the house if I don't really leave the building anyway, right?

Besides, I knew there was a noodle vendor out by the front entrance who seemed to put actual value in keeping his small shop clean. It was far from perfect, but I knew these days that beggars can't be choosers.

When I finally stepped out of the massive building, I had to shield my eyes for a moment as they adjusted to the bright, shining day. It was hot, but not horrifically, so I made my way down the steps of the entrance. The plaza was populated but had far fewer people than I had expected. I noted a cop standing by a large mechanical monstrosity, which I was pretty sure was called a Minitaur, off to the side. Focusing on my goal, I kept walking, going down two sets of stairs, until I reached a well-kept, mostly clean noodle shop. I sat down on one of the chairs and ordered a simple bowl of noodles with synth-beef, swiping my keyfob to pay for the food.

"Aye, I recognize that. That's one of those 'ganic chips. Never actually seen one before," Someone said from behind me, causing me to tense up.

"Uh… yeah… My parents were one of those religious nuts you hear about," I explained, something poking at the back of my mind. That voice sounded so familiar.

"For real? That's loco, man," The nosy man said. "Never thought I'd meet someone with so little chrome."

"Yeah, well, congrats, I-" I finally looked over at the man who had sat down at the vendor just as I did, and my brain locked up.

There, sitting two seats away, was Jackie Welles in all his glory, months after he should have been dead.

---

Hello everyone! I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of The Brink and Back! This story will be posted every Wednesday and, for now, will be about 4.5k-5k words per chapter to compensate for its limited schedule.

There are a few things I want to note:

• This story is AU. Basically, I took V out of the story and massaged the rest so that their not being present doesn't cause any issues. I want this story to be about Jackson, the MC, not about V and what they did.
• I love the setting of Cyberpunk, but it would be impossible to remember and work in every tiny bit of relevant content from the game. I apologize if you skip your favorite character or handwave away your favorite gig. The setting is what's important to me, not the nitty-gritty details of the game. That said, as you can see from my cliffhanger, it's not a complete empty canvas.
• THIS IS A TINKER FIC. Building, planning, crafting resource gathering, and talking about how tech works is going to be a large part of the story. There will be plenty of other stuff going on, too, but tinkering will always be an aspect.

 

[Elibott12]

he should see if he can build a skulljack, I feel like that would be useful for someone with no chrome. he also should see if he can make julian or something like him... could be helpful to have an actual AI on the team.

 

[Wonderbread16]

Always exciting to see tinker of fiction in different universes.

 

[Cyrus2]

Always nice to see a Tinker of fiction take place in a different universe. It's a rarity it seems, looking forward to seeing where you take this Cyberpunk is always fun to play around with.

 

[Smush]

A fun start, I enjoyed the first chapter. I played the 2.0 update of cyberpunk and it was great, so this has my interest.

 

[BlackCoat13]

X-Com Psychic Powers and stuff like their military grade hacking tech and Gremlins is a great pickup, an immense equalizer to put him on par with the setting's own top tier stuff, shame he got it as his first roll, he probably won't be able to afford any of the really good stuff before it's gone.

 

[carlwash]

Fantastic can't wait for more

 

[maganam]

One thing that makes me wonder if it is possible to unlock psi powers with this tech branch.

 

[Andre Chaos]

I am going to watch, where it is going. Really like how things started. Also, how well mechanics of this power fit into my own vision of it.​

 

[MetaBettaOmega]

I was silent for a long moment, staring at Jackie, my brain trying to spin up and figure out what was going on. I was silent long enough for the large, muscular man to notice. He turned to look at me, raising his eyebrow.

"Something wrong?" He asked, looking down at his shirt. "Didn't make a mess, did I? I got a date later, going back home to change would be a pain."

"N-No, sorry. You… just remind me of someone," I finally said, shaking my head. "Sorry."

"No harm amigo, must have been a handsome friend," He said with a laugh before slurping up another string of noodles.

I shrugged and continued to eat, doing my best to seem casual, looking over at the rather built man again.

"Names Jackson," I volunteered, reaching over to shake his hand.

"Huh, how about that, mines Jackie," He said, reaching over and taking my hand after wiping it off on his pants. "Good to meet you."

"You live around here?" I asked after a moment, flicking my chopsticks at the Megabuilding. "I'm new to the building so…"

"Not here, but I live around in Valentinos territory. Moved back in with Mama. She likes having me around," He answered with a shrug. "Saves on rent, and you can't beat home cooking."

"Yeah… not much better than that…" I said, a memory of my old life flashing in my mind for a moment. "You a member? Of the Valentinos."

"Used to be, left to keep Mama happy when I got hurt. Still close with Padre, though," He responded with a shrug. "What about you? Got any connections?"

"No. I'm new to Night City," I admitted. "New to a lot of things. The family kept us pretty close…"

"Right, right, crazy 'ganic family," He nodded, and for a moment, I felt bad for lying to him. "You looking for work? Lots of people come to Night City looking for a fresh start… Doesn't always work but…"

"I… I'm a techie," I explained with a shrug. "Build stuff mostly, inventor, innovator, stuff like that."

"Really? A techie who isn't chipped out? Pull the other one. It's got bells," He said with a chuckle, looking over to see that I was serious. "For real? Well, maybe you can help me then. Mama Welles has been pushing me to get some subdermal, but my lady doesn't like the way it feels. Gotta keep the output happy, ya know? You got any recommendations?"

"Body armor," I respond easily. "Cheaper, no recovery time, replaceable. Just gotta remember to put it on. In fact…"

For a moment, I focused back on the XCOM tech tree, feeling my mind searching for a moment before eventually finding what I was looking for. I focused on the idea, making sure that it was possible with what I had access to.

"I've had an idea bouncing around for a new type of protective vest. Something you can wear under your clothes but should still protect you," I explained. "I can build it just fine… but I don't have a way to test it."

"Are you suggesting I wear it while getting shot?" He asked, his expression all but openly questioning my intelligence.

"What? No, I just don't have any guns, and I don't really have a place to shoot it," I explained, not mentioning that I was scared to go somewhere I could shoot it by myself. "All I have is my Unity."

"Right, okay. What's in it for me?" He asked, his noodles momentarily forgotten. "I appreciate helping your fellow man as much as the next guy, but bullets ain't cheap choom."

"Yeah, sure. If the vest works, I'll sell you one at a discount," I said, thinking for a moment before adding. "If it doesn't, I'll pay you a couple thousand eddies for your time. Say two?"

I was pretty confident in the armor I had in mind, but everything I knew about it was measured in terms of the XCOM metrics. I would need to test it on the local scale to really be sure. Plus… I wanted to know what was going on with Jackie still being alive, and the best way to do that was to spend some time with him.

"...Alright, I'm starting to see the benefit," He said, nodding with a smile. "What kind of firepower you lookin to throw at your stuff? I can get my hands on some higher calibers, but I'm only a solo, can't magic up anything miraculous."

"Just the kind of things you're worried about running into," I explained. "You're the expert there."

"I can do that. You need a fireline, too, something out of the way… How do you feel about the badlands? Should be a quiet spot somewhere under the wind farms."

"Uh… you think it's safe?"

"Should be, but no guarantees around Night City," He pointed out. "Don't worry, I'll get you back safe and sound. When should we do this?"

"Not tomorrow, but the day after, Sunday afternoon?" I suggested. "I need some time to put everything together."

"Alright, done deal choom. I gotta say, I got a good feeling about you, did the moment I sat down," He said with a laugh. "Glad to see my instincts are still top-notch."

I chuckled and nodded along, taking another bite of noodles. We talked for a few more minutes, mostly about what was going on in the neighborhood and what sort of places were good to go for, like food and shopping. He had plenty of good things to say about Coyote Cojo, the bar his mom owned. I promised I'd consider going, but personally, I was wary of going anywhere so blatantly owned by one gang. The Valentinos might be a gang that focused on honor, loyalty, and family, but they were still a gang.

Eventually, my keyfob vibrated, an alarm going off that my latest piece on my fabricator was complete. I quickly finished my noodles, which by now had gone cold.

"Sorry, Jackie, but I gotta go. Got a project going that I need to get back to," I explained, reaching out to shake the larger man's hand again. "I'll see you on Sunday. Just knock on my door."

"'Bout time for me to get going anyway," He admitted, standing with me. "Need to get going if I'm gonna pick up my girl. Good luck with your work."

I nodded and headed back to the entrance of the Megabuilding, climbing into the elevator, my mind already spooling up. I had no idea how he was still alive, and seemingly no worse for wear. It was possible that V and Jackie didn't get involved with the Arasaka job, but even that seemed unlikely. At the beginning of the game, the montage of V and Jackie working together made them seem thick as thieves, the kind of partners who did everything together, so I couldn't imagine he wouldn't mention getting some protection for them as well, which made me think that they weren't partners at all. Unfortunately, I didn't have nearly enough information to draw any conclusion beyond now knowing that this reality was not the canon reality.

Like I needed any more excuses to be paranoid.

I shook my head and did my best to put aside the new mystery because, without more info, I wouldn't make any progress cracking it. Besides, I had work to do, especially since I just set a deadline.

I stepped back into my apartment, the door opening for me and shutting behind me. I made a beeline for my workshop, only stopping when I realized that the status light on the Elerium generator was blinking green. I walked around to the coffee table and cracked open the top of the crystalization chamber, using a pair of 3D-printed tongs to reach in, grab the new blue crystal, and gently replace the seed diamond inside. I topped up three of the chemical reservoirs before closing the lid and sealing the chamber, pressing a button to start the machine back up.

I detoured to the bathroom to wash the crystal off before finally heading back into the workshop. The first thing I did was restock the fabricator before sitting down at the work table and spinning around. I let out a long breath, frowning as I watched the fabricator work away in the corner.

The machine was incredible, blowing anything that the humans in XCOM out of the water. It did a hilarious number of different metalworking tasks almost completely by itself. It was a bit on the wasteful side, but the real problem was that it was still only one machine. I was on a time limit with this tree, and if I wanted to get to the few things worth knowing, I needed to escape this bottleneck. The problem was that even with several impressive things dotted around, the human branch of XCOM didn't really offer any solutions.

The XCOM program managed to push human tech, especially military tech, to a whole new level. The problem was that most of that advancement was due to integrating alien tech with human thinking. Even worse, most of the stuff they were making was handmade. Engineers would be given alien salvage, and they would strip it down of anything useful, refine anything that needed it, and then use it to make stuff almost completely by hand. Sure, there was some minor automation, but nothing really beyond the standard tech of the time, which would be around 2015 in my old world.

The human XCOM branch had some shiny stuff, sure, but a lot of the other stuff useless, and almost all of the background tech was pointless. Hell, I wasn't even sure how the mag weapons would stack up against the tech weapons here.

The more I worked with it and the more I explored the options, the more I realized that there would only be a few things genuinely useful from the human tech tree. Everything else could be beaten by the standard Cyberpunk tech.

"Which means I need more Cyberpunk tech," I muttered to myself, shaking my head. "More fabricators, more printers."

I turned back to the computer and pulled up a calendar app. I marked the day I could switch, which was four days away, then I marked the day I had to switch, which was four days, one week away. I marked the testing meeting with Jackie. Then I leaned back. After a few seconds, I added 'Alloy smelter' on Friday, today, and 'Nanoscale vest', then 'Plated vest' on Saturday.

Alien Alloy, as you might expect, was a strange substance, so learning how to work with it was paramount. I had always planned on working on the two vests, both to familiarise myself with the material and to make some protection for myself, but making a bit of dough off the top wasn't a bad thing either.

My quickly dwindling funds were another problem that I needed to solve.

I shook my head and focused on the calendar before closing my eyes and looking back on what sort of options I had in the tech tree. Psionics was obviously something I wanted to investigate for no other reason than to keep it as an option. I couldn't think of many universes where making psychics was as easy as locking people in a room for a few days. Unfortunately, I barely even had to focus on the tech used to unlock psionics for a second before seeing that it was far beyond me.

There were several things I needed to build before I could tackle that, not to mention the resources and time.

I started filling out the calendar, trying to find a way to make as many of the interesting parts of the tree as possible. It wasn't just about solidifying the tech for future work, but also about the knowledge I gained for each finished project. I learned quite a bit about energy transference from constructing the pistol, enough that building the laser rifle seemed well worth it. I also wanted to tap into the mag rifle tech, if nothing more than to understand it for future improvement. Then, between what I would learn from the mag rifles and the laser weapons, I was hoping I would be able to tackle plasma weapons.

I was also interested in the higher-level armors, like the Warden and E.X.O Suit. I'm not sure how difficult getting to them might be, but using them as a platform to understand and build the W.A.R. suit would be a decent end-of-rotation project if psionics continued to be an unreachable goal.

I would have to explore the options more later. It had been a while since I had played any of the XCOM games, so I'm sure there were more than a few hidden gems tucked away in the corners of the tree. For now, I needed to focus on getting my Alien Alloy production up and running. Which, unfortunately, for now, relied on me waiting for parts to finish.

About an hour and a half later, mainly spent working on blueprinting on the CAD program and feeding metal and ceramic stock to the fabricator, I could start putting everything together, starting from the ground up. The smelter was a lot more robust than the Elerium generator, with layers of heatproof insulation, ceramic tiling, and several cooling and heating elements, as well as agitators and several ingredient distributors that would mix in chemicals and several other ingredients at specific times. If I had been dropped in a less advanced time, I would have likely been doing this over a large furnace, timing and weighing ingredients by hand. Luckily, I could skip that step with a few dozen purchases online.

Essentially, I was burning money to advance myself further and in less time. I wouldn't be able to do that for long, but I was desperate to get my hands on better ways to protect myself.

Putting the smelter together took four hours in total, during which I pulled out another small crystal of Elerium from the generator, which was good because the previous one went into the building of the smelter. When the smelter itself was complete, I filled up the compartments with several different materials and filled the primary crucible with several bars of titanium. The last thing I did was very carefully crush up the latest Elerium crystal, as well as the waste from the last few projects, into as fine a powder as I could, before adding it to the final distributor.

Now I knew that, in reality, there was no way that the aliens in the XCOM universe were using Elerium to make Alien Alloy. But then again, they weren't using titanium as a base, either. This was all black-boxed, and tinker-magicked to the max, which was frustrating but understandable, considering I had no way of getting my hands on the real materials.

I spent a minute or so double-checking everything, making sure the smelter was all set. The materials going into this batch cost about four hundred eddies in total, including the small portion of Elerium it would use, so fucking up wasn't an option. After making sure everything was set, I finally activated the smelter. I could hear the heater kicking on, and after listening to it for a moment, I left the room. According to the plans I had in my head, the system should put off some heat, but not so much that the room's climate control wouldn't be able to keep up. Part of me doubted that was possible, but I decided to trust it for now.

I made my way to my bed, sitting down at the edge. I set my alarm for three hours, which was when the next Elerium crystal would be done, and laid down to catch some sleep. I was out pretty quickly, though it hardly felt like any time had passed when my alarm woke me back up.

For the rest of the night, into the next day, and all the way to Sunday morning, I slept and worked to the beat of my machines. I would wake up to change out the Elerium crystal, add more metal to the smelter, and give the 3D printer and foundry a new project. When I was done trying to sleep, I started feeding the fabricator Alien Alloy, which the smelter could produce in thick ingots or in thinner sheets. The lack of variety meant a lot more waste, but luckily, I could feed almost all of it right back into the smelter to recycle.

I also spent a lot of time programming, repeating programs verbatim from the XCOM world, each one increasing my knowledge just a bit more. While I wasn't ready to start dabbling in AI, the VI that the XCOM program had access to, like the Gremlins and Spark units, could really come in handy. It would take a few days of programming random stuff till I got to that point, but it was easy progress since I was essentially just rewriting the code on my computer.

By the first hour of Sunday, about two pm, I had converted all of my ingredients into Alien Alloy and Elerium, though not much of it was left at that point. My first project was a nanoscale vest that followed the plans I had in my head exactly. Upon completion, I could feel a surprising amount of information about how the XCOM program worked with Alien Alloy put into my head, as well as how a lot of their protective vests worked. I could confirm that even without changing the overall design, my vest was better than the original simply because the bullet-resistant fabrics available blew past anything XCOM could get their hands on.

When the first vest was done, I immediately converted it into a plated vest, which wasn't quite as easy as just welding on some Alloy plates, but it also wasn't far off that. As I finished it, I could feel the knowledge of more advanced armor techniques flowing into my brain as I finished, as well as more general knowledge of metalworking.

With the designs solidified in my head, I completely disassembled the vest, rebuilding it from the ground up to cover more of my body. I have no idea why XCOM reserved the nanoscale part of the vest to just the chest area, but my version would cover my arms just above my elbow as well. I also made a pair of nanoscale undershorts, which covered down to my knees. I then added platting to the chest and crotch area.

My final version was a mix of the scale and plate vests, designed to give maximum protection to vitals while still being as material-effective as possible. I used almost all of my Alloy to make three of these. One for me, one for Jackie should he want it, and one for testing. The test one would be melted down when we were done so that I could re-use the Alloy.

While I spent a lot of my time putting together the vest, I was also using the 3D printer to work on a laser rifle. The original plans used a surprising amount of plastic in the design, and other than the Elerium charging chamber, the containment unit, the central barrel, and a few other small parts, the advanced polymers that the Cyberpunk era 3D printer was capable of using were more than sufficient. The end result felt more like a well-made nerf cannon than a powerful weapon, but what mattered was that it counted as completing the tech, and I got a whole dump of information about exotic energies, Elerium charging systems, and high-temperature materials.

Once again, it was all derivative of alien tech, especially the Elerium and Alien Alloy, but it was still important information.

When I finally called it a night, I set up the fabricator and 3D printer to run while I slept, giving them two of the larger, more complicated parts of the mag pistol. I crawled into bed, sleeping uninterrupted until the following morning. I was halfway through making the rest of the mag pistol parts when there was a knock on my door.

"Jackie, hey. Good to see you," I said, greeting the mercenary with a handshake. "Let me just set up a few things, then we can go."

I walked back into the apartment, and Jackie followed behind me. I stepped into my workshop and sat down at my computer.

"Nice little setup you got," He commented, leaning against the doorframe as I tapped away on my computer.

"Small is the problem," I said, shaking my head as I fed the fabricator a new plan, before feeding it a bar of Alien Alloy. "Bottlenecks suck."

"Eh, don't be too hard on yourself," Jackie said with a shrug. "Gotta walk before you run."

"Don't have the time to learn, unfortunately," I mumbled, mostly to myself.

It took me a minute to strap on my gun and finish getting dressed. Thankfully, I was already wearing my copy of the armor. When we finally left, I was carrying the test copy, as well as the one for Jackie.

As we left the apartment complex, Jackie led me to an older-looking car. My in-world knowledge told me it was a cheap model almost as old as I was, the kind that people kept updating to keep it usable. I put my bag in the back seat before climbing into the passenger seat.

"So who did you borrow this from?" I asked as Jackie sat in the driver's seat, starting the car started with a press of a button.

"That obvious, huh?" He asked with a chuckle.

"You strike me as a motorcycle kind of guy," I responded with a smirk.

"Damn, good guess," He responded as we pulled away from the sidewalk. "A choom of mine owed me a couple favors, lent me the car and some iron. Should have plenty to test your vest."

I nodded and looked out the window, watching as a few buildings. As we drove, I found myself switching between recognizing some patches and not having a clue where we were going. I was pretty sure the city itself was mostly like it was in the games, but I had a feeling that some areas, like the slums or certain apartment blocks, were significantly larger than they had been. It made sense, all things considered, but it also was just another thing on the growing list of differences between the game and my new life. I looked over at Jackie, another thing on that list, shaking my head.

"So, how did your date go?" I asked, the muscular solo smiling at the question.

"It was preem. Misty always knows how to make me slow down and relax," He responded. "She is one of those mystic types, all about the soul or chakras. I try to understand, but it honestly just all goes over my head."

"I know the type," I admit. "I don't like the idea of living my life on the terms of spiritualism or what my sign is, but there is something to some of those beliefs. The hard part is seeing what's for gonks and what's real."

"For real?" he asked, looking over at me surprised. "Didn't think techies believed that kinda stuff."

"Worlds filled with crazy shit, Jackie," I said, thinking about my own experience. "Hard to dismiss it all as chance and science."

"I won't argue with that," He said with a shrug. "Anyway, I took her out to dinner. I know this great place, not far from her shop."

We continued to drive, eventually pulling out of the city to the badlands. Part of me realized that I was taking a rather big risk, letting someone I just met bring me out this far into the desert, but I found myself trusting Jackie. Plus, I didn't think he had it in him to lie or act that convincingly if he did plan on taking me out here to shoot me.

Eventually, we pulled off the main road and onto a back road, eventually pulling under a large windmill. Jackie parked directly under the shadow of one, before we both climbed out.

"Alright, I got a mannequin in the back, snagged it from a dumpster behind an old shop. We can set the vest up on that," Jackie said as we walked around to the back of the car, popping the trunk.

It took a minute and a few strips of duct tape, but eventually, we stepped back to the car to admire our work. The mannequin was about thirty feet away, supported by a cactus, wearing the shorts and the vest. Both were taped in place, making the whole thing look like the kind of hack job you see from one of those gun channels on Youtube.

"You want the first shot?" Jackie asked, crossing his arms and sitting on the lip of the trunk. "You do know how to use that Unity, don't you?"

"I know well enough," I assured him, turning toward the target and drawing my pistol.

I took a second to line up my shot before pulling the trigger, the .45 caliber bullet splitting the air until it slapped into the plated part of the vest. Not satisfied with just testing the strongest part, I fired three more times, hitting the arm, the chest again, and then the thigh. None of the bullets went through.

"Well… it beats a .45. That's a good start," I said, pulling out the magazine from my Unity and trading it for a full one, before sliding the pistol back into its holster.

"Don't get to cocky, amigo, I've seen .45s get stopped by sturdy leather jackets," He said, turning around and reaching into the trunk. "Let's try something with a bit more power."

He reached into the and pulled out a Liberty, a slightly heftier pistol firing a slightly bigger round. He stepped forward as I stepped back, firing off several rounds. When he was done, we both walked to the armor to examine the damage.

"Damn, not even a dent," He said, running a finger over the mark left by the bullets. "And scale is intact too, not bad."

We walked back to the car, testing out several more weapons. The vest held up incredibly well, only starting to struggle when we started pulling out rifles and a shotgun. Even so, it held up pretty well, with scales only failing after a few hits and the plated sections taking repeat and accurate fire. It only lost outright to a chunky-looking precision rifle I didn't recognize from the game, one that fired a big old round.

When we were done testing, we pulled down the vest and shorts to take a closer look. Jackie ran his hand over the last hole, the one from the high-powered precision rifle.

"I gotta say, Jackson. I came out here 'cause I figured two grand for a drive and some range time was a sweet deal," He admitted. "But this is impressive stuff. No offense, but… you sure you made this?"

"I did, it's made of a new alloy I came up with," I explained.

"Well… Mama Welles would smack me blue for passing up a deal that could keep me safe. How much do you want for it?"

For a moment, I frowned, wondering exactly what something like this was worth. It was about six hundred eddies of material, most if it from the Alien Alloy. I was tempted to just say a grand because I wanted Jackie to have a little extra protection if he didn't have V watching his back… But I honestly couldn't afford to give up the money.

I made a lot of progress over the last few days, but I burned a lot of eddies to do so. It was going to get a lot harder to keep up that momentum if I didn't make some cash back.

"Let's say… two thousand five hundred," I said, about to open my mouth and add that we could take some off for his discount, but he beat me out.

"Seriously? That's it?" He asked, looking surprised. "Damn, I expected a lot more. I appreciate you cutting me a deal, Choom."

Before I could say anything, his eyes glowed orange, and my keyfob vibrated. I pulled it out to see two and a half thousand Eurodollars had been added to my account.

"Well… listen, you want me to spread the word a bit?" He asked, before spotting my wince and continuing. "I could keep it down to a few people I trust not to talk, could even run the deliveries for you if you're not keen on showing your face."

"I… yeah. Keep it slow at first. I have a lot of projects of my own to keep up with, but a set of vests and pants every few days would be fine."

"Perfecto! We could charge at least three and a half gees for this armor, choom, and I'll take a small cut, from their side, of course," He assured me, despite me about to offer him a cut anyway. "C'mon, let's get something to eat to celebrate a new opportunity!"

 

[boosh]

I am watching with great interest.

 

[Elibott12]

I wonder if he'll be this Jackie's V, because it appears that V doesn't exist.

He should see what it takes to make the UFO navigation computer I feel it could lead to good communication tech and maybe some sensors.

IMO I feel he should be seeing if a firestorm is viable to construct as that seems to be a good option as a vehicle and if he can get AI it could possibly be automated.

regardless, really enjoying this so far.

 

[sdeligar]

Really enjoying this story so far. Might just be one of the most interesting uses for Tinker of Fiction I've seen. Can't wait for more chapters!

 

[TwilightHakumei]

Well this is an interesting start but I suggest putting cyberpunk in the tags as I keep skipping this when I was looking for cyberpunk fics. So what happen to V? did he/she got delayed, doesn't exist or the events got delayed.

 

[MemoryDump]

Really enjoying this story, keep up the good work!

 

[Nuitblanche]

Well, color me curious pal ! Cyberpunk is actually a fun setting to base your story in because, as you pointed multiple times in the narrative, the tech level is already pretty neat for a lot of material science so it gives a lil peps to the Tinker of fiction.

 

[sdeligar]

Well this is an interesting start but I suggest putting cyberpunk in the tags as I keep skipping this when I was looking for cyberpunk fics. So what happen to V? did he/she got delayed, doesn't exist or the events got delayed.

Click to shrink...

OP says at the end of chapter one that this is an AU with no V in this world.

 

[MetaBettaOmega]

Jackie treated me to a small pizza shop on the outskirts of Valintino territory. The pizza tasted like cardboard, and I had to threaten physical violence to keep him from putting crickets on it. I was also pretty sure I spotted a few people eyeing me up, but when Jackie called one out by saying hello and asking how they had been doing, they stopped sniffing around. It was still nerve-wracking, though, and closer to gang contact than I really wanted.

Mind you, I wasn't naive enough to think I would get what I wanted. Dealing with gangs was a part of Night City and, as far as I understood it, the Cyberpunk setting as a whole. It didn't matter where I went, some sort of gang would call it home. It still made me nervous.

Still, hanging out with Jackie was fun. I definitely understood how V ended up trusting him so quickly. He seemed to have a way of drawing you in and making you feel comfortable. Eventually, when we were done eating, he took me back to the megabuilding, dropping me off as close as he could get with his borrowed car.

"I'll be in touch, maybe even later today," He said. "Depends on when certain people respond to my messages. Don't worry, I'll keep your name out of it."

"Alright Jackie, you've got my number," I said as I climbed out of his car, turning around and leaning back into the open door. "If I don't pick up, just try again. I might not have my keyfob on me."

"Sure thing, Jackson."

I gave him a lazy salute and shut the door, slapping the hood as I stepped back. The older car pulled away from the curb, leaving me standing on the sidewalk. I looked around, paranoia already rising now that I was alone. When I was certain I wasn't about to be ambushed, I turned back and made a beeline towards the building entrance, heading straight up to my room.

All in all, the test had been very encouraging, and not just because the Alien Alloy held up very well to quite a few of the basic weapons used in Night City. When I completed the original version of the nanoscale and plated vests, I learned an awful lot about them. While at the time, I had been most interested in how to best manipulate Alien Alloy, I also got quite a bit of info on how durable the nanoscale and plate was. The only issue was that this information was primarily in terms of weapons from that reality.

With a live demonstration, I could now compare the damage I saw with my own eyes with the damage I knew XCOM weapons were capable of. From there, I could extrapolate how Cyberpunk and XCOM weapons compared, at least in general.

As far as I could tell, the normal ballistic weapons from XCOM were equivalent to low-end weapons from Cyberpunk. Laser weapons generally equated to the middle tier, though there was something to be said about the perfect precision and heat transference of the system. Mag weapons were mainly in the middle to high tier since they could penetrate plate armor with a few shots, putting it on the same level as the high-powered rifle Jackie had gotten his hands on.

That just left plasma weapons, which, as far as I could tell from my general perspective, were a complete upgrade from mag weapons, combining the best aspects of laser and magnetic while adding a substantial amount of secondary damage from heat. I was pretty sure that all of the plasma weapons from the XCOM universe would match or beat the best that this world had to offer. I'm sure there were some secret weapons that Arasaka or Militech were working on, but I couldn't imagine they were nearly as polished, stable, or reproducible as the plasma tech that I could access.

Assuming I could build them before my specialty changed.

The second I got home, I set the fabricator back up, getting it working on the next piece of the mag pistol. I then stripped all of the Alien Alloy from the test armor, dumping it back into the smelter. I would get a nearly one hundred percent return on smelting Alloy scraps.

Once the smelter was going and the fabricator and 3D printer were moving, I sat down at the computer and spent every eddie that Jackie had paid me, then a few hundred more. My "savings," which were really just a chunk of eddies that the entities who stranded me here had given me, were getting lower and lower. With the last batch of purchases, I finally sank below ten thousand. It wasn't a small amount, especially considering I was used to living on a much smaller buffer in my home world, but I still knew that wouldn't last long. I was dreading that my second "specialty" would end up being something money-intensive but extremely potent, forcing me to struggle and miss out on some worthwhile stuff because I had spent everything.

Within three hours of arriving home, the parts for the mag pistol were finished, and I could assemble it. I had to say, the mag pistol, and I assumed mag weapons as a whole, were fascinating. The barrel, parts of the receiver system, Elerium charge chamber, and the energy diffusion bank were all built out of Alien Alloy, meaning it took significantly more resources than the laser pistol. As a bonus, though, it also made critical portions of the weapon substantially more robust.

The charging system could hold much more energy, and the strange properties of AA meant barely any of a fired projectile's speed was lost to friction despite still engaging with the barrel's rifling. As I built the pistol's Elerium charging chamber, rather than use one of my whole shards, I took apart the power generator of the laser pistol and used the Elerium inside that.

Once I finished the new pistol, I basked in the deluge of information I got from it, enjoying my new understanding of the technology. I then removed the pistol's ridiculous skeletonized shell and replaced it with an aluminum one with built-in heat sinks and a much more complete frame. This would not only better protect the sensitive tech inside the frame, but it would also serve to hide how the pistol was built.

Between going out to lunch and finishing the mag pistol, it was starting to get late. I spent the last few hours of the day building the CAD blueprint for the mag rifle, before calling it a day.

----------------​

The following morning, my sixth day in the Cyberpunk word, I woke up to an express delivery of materials being dropped off by my door. It was a rather large bundle of stuff, and I was excited to get it into my workshop. Most of the delivery was materials and ingredients, a portion of which went immediately into my Elerium and AA production.

There was also a single industrial robotic arm, the kind that you would see in an automotive factory back home, only around the size of my own arm and significantly more advanced. Now, technically, I could have built something similar with my own hands. I had the parts and tools after all, and the XCOM universe did have several models that I could have used. But here, in the age of cyberware, a simple robotic arm was amazingly cheap. The model I bought was essentially a glorified learning aid, and it was already stronger, more flexible, and had several more points of articulation than anything the XCOM universe had access to.

It took me about an hour to bolt the arm to the side of the fabricator and another two to whip up a basic program that allowed me to feed simple directions to the arm, specifically to remove and feed materials to the fabricator. It would be useless for new, unique things, but now I could go to sleep and leave the fabricator running to produce simple, repeatable things, like the scales and plates for my brand of AA under armor. It would make keeping up with any orders I got from Jackie much easier. I was still looking forward to getting better systems in the future, but this was a step in the right direction.

I spent the rest of the morning and start of the afternoon building my mag rifle and preparing the base fabrics for another set of AA under armor. That turned out to be a good idea because Jackie called me at about ten PM with some news.

"Good news, Jackson! I showed some of the footage I got-"

"Footage? What footage?" I asked, talking into my keyfob, mentally cursing the idiot who decided not to make it more like a smartphone.

"I recorded some of our testing yesterday," He explained. "I got some Mk. 1 Kiroshi's from a ripperdoc friend of mine. They record preem footage, self-stabilize, the whole shebang. Anyway, don't worry, I didn't show anything with you in it. They were interested in grabbing a few sets of your armor."

"Jackie, my production cycle isn't really set up for mass production," I explained with a wince. "I don't-"

"I know, compadre, I explained that, but get this. They thought I was playing hard to get, so they offered fifteen thousand eddies for three sets. Thought they were paying a premium to cut ahead in line, I couldn't bring myself to correct them."

"Well… I might be able to make three by… Wednesday afternoon…" I admitted, going over how long everything would take in my head. "That's if I can get a delivery of stuff in by tomorrow."

"What if I did some shopping for you?" He asked. "I can play delivery boy for a day if I can get an extra grand."

I chewed my lip as I considered the possibility before nodding to myself. I had no issues paying Jackie a bit more, and getting the order done quickly was a solid plan.

"If you can pick me up a few things from around the city, I could get it done Tuesday afternoon, maybe a few hours after. But that's an all-nighter."

"You can crash after we make some eddies," He said like I was being dumb. "I'll stop by in an hour, so have a list ready for me."

"Wait. Who are these people?" I asked. "How well do you know them?"

"...They are Valentinos," He admitted after a long moment. "They watch the block that Coyote is on. They are good people, Jackson."

"...Don't take this the wrong way, but I need to ask Jackie because I'm new to this city. The Valentinos. They sell people?" I asked simply.

"What? No, that's bad business, cabrone. They might help people cross some borders occasionally, but no selling people, I promise."

"Do they sell to kids?" I asked, this time noting a slight pause.

"Not pulling your punches, eh choom?" He asked. "Padre's official rule is that kids don't get anything, any the Valentinos follow it. But pushers aren't exactly asking for detes. And who knows if some corner gonk follows the rule anyway?"

I let out a long breath, trying to parse out where my limit was, where I would draw my line. How far was I willing to bend to survive? In a world like Cyberpunk, that is exactly what was on the table.

"Alright, Jackie, stop by soon. I'll have a list for you."

"Preem, see you soon."

My keyfob went dark, and I continued to stare at it for a moment before letting out a long breath and tossing it onto my workbench. I ground my palms into my eyes for a second before looking around. I needed to fill up the smelter and restock the Elerium generator. By then, the part the fabricator was working on should be done, so I could queue up parts I would need for the first AA under armor.

I stood and got to work, quickly getting everything set before sitting back down and getting to work. I was just starting to affix the first batch of scales to the upper torso armor when Jackie came knocking on my door. I let him in quickly before returning to my workshop and using my keyfob to send him a list.

"There's a list of places you should be able to buy that stuff from," I said, already working on the armor again. "Try to spread it out so it's not all coming from only a few places."

"I know the drill choom, not my first shopping gig," Jackie assured me, his eyes glowing orange as he read through my list. "Gonna need eddies to buy all this…"

"Right, sorry," I said, grabbing my keyfob and sending him the eddies, before returning to work.

"Alright, I'll get- Jesus, Jackson, what is that?"

I whirled around to see Jackie lifting the mag rifle, putting it up to his shoulder, and looking down the sights. To his credit, he wasn't facing anywhere near me, instead aiming the empty weapon at the apartment's exterior wall. He even had good trigger discipline. It looked good without the skeletonized structure, which I replaced with the same sort of aluminum plating I had used on the mag pistol.

"Where did you get this from?" He said, looking over the rifle with wide eyes. "This is preem iron, Jackson."

"It's a prototype Mag… Tech weapon," I explained, turning around and watching him. "I don't really have any ammo for it at the moment. I was just sort of trying it out."

"Seriously? You're just throwing together guns too?" He asked, still looking over the rifle. "What's that one?"

As he asked, he placed the mag rifle back onto the couch, hand already reaching out to the finished, and very much armed, laser rifle.

"Don't touch that one!" I said loudly, Jackie freezing in response. "That one is charged and not safe to be showing off indoors."

"...what is it?" He asked, pulling his hand back.

"A prototype," I explained. "No use bragging about it yet."

He seemed to accept my explanation, though I couldn't tell if it was cause he actually believed me or if he just didn't care enough to call me out.

"Right. Well, I'll be back with your stuff soon," He responded. "Few hours tops."

"I'll be waiting," I responded without turning around, still focused on the vest in front of me.

I heard my new business partner leave, my front door sealing back shut and locking automatically. I let out a long breath and got back to my work, slowly affixing the AA scales to the first layer of the bullet-resistant fabric. The fabric was shockingly easy to work with, especially with how much knowledge of how to stitch, bind, and make sturdy combat gear and clothing I had from making the original version of the nanoscale vest. I was pretty sure I would become a world-class seamster eventually.

By the time Jackie returned from shopping, I had finished the first pair of Nanoplate shorts and had started on the first shirt. I immediately started filling the AA smelter and Elerium generator while Jackie sat down on my couch, eating a burrito he had bought. He had even gotten me one. I would try to stomach it when I was done... it would be rude not to.

"This is some real mad science shit, eh choom?" He asked, leaning in to watch as I gently put the seed diamond into its brace. "How has a Corp not snapped you up yet?"

"Because I've only recently started really building stuff," I admitted, closing the generator up. "I want nothing to do with the Corps."

"Well… you came to the wrong city then," He said with a wince. "Arasaka owns Night City. And whatever scraps they don't own, the other corps fight over."

"I know… It wasn't exactly my first choice," I admitted, plopping down on the other side of the U-shaped couch, grabbing the burrito that Jackie had gotten me, unwrapping it, and taking a bite.
It tasted like someone tried to cook a tire mexican style, gave up and stuffed it into a cardboard tortilla. It was horrifying and made me miss Chipotle. If I ever made it back home, I would never complain about low-quality food ever again.

I did my best to choke down the food, trying not to reveal how horrible it was, focusing on the fact that someday, if I was very lucky, I might get a tech branch that included a way to make food. Maybe a Star Trek branch.

"You have any plans past making armor and guns?" Jackie asked, sounding genuinely curious as he leaned back on the couch, his food done.

"I… have a few ideas," I admitted. "Nothing concrete yet, though."

In all honesty, I was waiting to see what my next tech branch would be. I was desperately crossing my fingers that whatever I rolled would have some sort of automation, something I would be able to put together and would work similarly to how the fabricator did. Even if it was a lesser version, having a few of them working while the fabricator handled the more detailed work would be fantastic.

After we finished our food, Jackie left me to my work, promising to come pick up and deliver the AA under armor the following afternoon. I quickly got back to the process of attaching the AA scales, finishing that, and starting to attach the plates. It was boring, mind-numbing work that poked and prodded at my patience, wearing it thin. By the time the afternoon had turned into night, I was cursing Jackie's name and heavily regretting letting him win me over.

When I was finally done putting everything together, it was early Tuesday morning, and the sun had risen over the city, light peaking in from my window. I now had three sets of the AA armor complete. I would have been done sooner, but I decided to spend an hour double-checking that everything was done right. As frustrating as it was making three of the exact same mind-numbing things in a row, with no time to work on other projects or even take a prolonged break, I still wanted to deliver a quality product. The big corps might not understand the importance of having a product you can stand by, but I did.

When I finally finished the job, I barely stayed awake long enough to crash into my bed. I wasn't really good at pulling all-nighters or staying up extra late, something I had learned the hard way as I got older. I could do it as long as I was keeping busy and working hard, but the second that stopped, I was out like a light. I slept for four hours before Jackie stopped by to pick up the delivery. I was awake just long enough to let him in, hand him the three sets of AA under armor, and shoo him out the door before I collapsed back in my bed. This time, I set an alarm for three more hours. I felt like I could have slept all the way to the following morning, but I had work to do and a time limit to do it in.

I woke up to the sound of my alarm and an extra thirteen thousand eddies in my account. Jackie had already taken his cut, and it was still by far the largest amount of money I had ever made in such a short time. It completely replenished what I had spent so far, plus an extra grand. It was a heady feeling but also quite nerve-wracking. I had just put a two or three dozen pounds of unique, blackboxed metal out into the wild. Sure, it was a simple, unassuming use, but it wasn't hard to imagine someone getting their hands on it and realizing what they had. Or rather, realizing that they didn't know what they had.

Yes, I was still paranoid, but at this point, I was embracing it, because the corpos, if they knew I existed, would definitely be after me.

When I finally got around to sitting in front of my computer, I opened up my schedule. My first week would be up at midnight that night, so I wanted to take a look at what else I could get done with my remaining time.

From what I could tell, I would probably spend two whole days on plasma weapons simply because I wanted to make every form I could so I had a firm grasp on how they worked. I also wanted to take some time working on the warden armor, especially because I was pretty sure I could skip over the predator armor and start making the warden armor with what I had learned from making the plate vest. On top of that, I wouldn't have to learn how to make and then produce the synthetic muscle fiber that made the armor a "power" armor. I could just buy it by the box online. Even better, I could get it relatively cheaply since I didn't have to buy top-of-the-line.

The only issue was that, from what I could tell, developing the enhanced, heavy version of the warden armor, called the W.A.R. suit, was heavily reliant on the E.X.O. suit, the enhanced version of the predator armor. Of course, as one might expect, the E.X.O. suit seemed to be heavily tied to the predator armor, and since I planned on skipping that, it meant I wouldn't be able to make the W.A.R. suit. I tried to focus through the confusion of the E.X.O. suit, but when that failed, I decided to move ahead anyway. The warden armor system would substantially enhance the wearer's speed, strength, and durability already. Besides, while the W.A.R. suit would have been a nice addition, the more I studied the tech tree, the more I realized that building my way up to the W.A.R. suit would have taken up too much of my time.

With my next project decided, I closed out the calendar app and started adding things to my shopping list, filling my online cart with dozens of things, including more materials for Elerium and a lot of Alien Alloy. I spent a significant amount, once again burning eddies for quick progress.

With my supplies set to refresh sometime the next day, at a premium for quick delivery, I reopened the CAD software and got to work. By now, I was really starting to get good with the interface, making the design process go much more smoothly. When the first batch of parts was finished, I got the fabricator running.

This project would probably take the better part of two days, mostly because I would be waiting for each part to finish, even with the fact that I would be waiting until tomorrow to receive a lot of the smaller parts. In the end, I actually got very little done for the rest of the day, save finishing the CAD files and printing out about a third of the parts before running out of materials. I spent the rest of the day designing the parts, feeding the two generators the last of my ingredients, and feeding the fabricator the last of my Alien Alloy before going to bed early.

Exactly at midnight, I woke up gasping for breath. I could feel the knowledge of XCOM pulling away, slowly as if to show I had a choice. For a moment, I honestly debated letting it go, tempted by the chance of getting something new. But common sense won over eventually, and I mentally held tight. After a few moments, or maybe minutes, the sensation dissipated. I idly realized that I was absolutely drenched in sweat and that my heart was racing. Eventually, after washing my face and calming down a bit, I attempted to return to sleep. Unfortunately, any sleep I got was light and fitful.

The next morning, because of the poor sleep, I woke up annoyed, which was annoying in itself. I ended up spending an hour going outside and getting some food since working on delicate equipment and parts while agitated was a recipe for wasted money. When I got back, I immediately dove back in, stopping only to accept a few deliveries.

The rest of Wednesday and Thursday was spent in a blur of building and crafting.

The warden armor, as complicated as it was, basically broke down into three layers. The first was an inner skeleton of Alien Alloy and body-hugging material. This tight bodysuit and skeleton was the primary anchor for the second layer, the synthetic muscles. These were what gave the wearer enhanced strength and speed, working with the wearer's natural muscles incredibly well. The muscle fibers were an interesting material and had a lot of potential, so I was glad that completing the warden armor would give me a much better understanding of how it worked. Or, at least, the vaguely inferior version that XCOM used.

The artificial muscles were controlled by a central control system housed on the back. It was the suit's brain and required a lot of heavy programming. Luckily, I had spent plenty of time learning a significant portion of the programming XCOM was capable of, so whipping up the program and fitting it into a system nearly half the size of what XCOM used was pretty easy. This system also monitored the four Elerium power nodes that provided the synthetic muscles with the energy they needed to function.

The third and final layer was the Alien Alloy outer shell. The shell was attached both to the first and second layers, making the suit surprisingly flexible.

Completing the armor led to another large wave of information flowing into my brain, filling my head with knowledge of the entire armor, including the synthetic muscles and the Elerium nodes, which were the first constant energy generators I had made that used Elerium.

I sat back and, for a moment, just enjoyed the sensation of my mind expanding, going over what I had learned with a smile. It was hard to beat the sensation of becoming actually smarter, having large chunks of knowledge just offered to you, downloaded into my brain seamlessly. When I finally recovered, I started examining the final results of two days of work before finally starting to put it on.

The process of putting on the armor wasn't exactly simple. The armor was heavy, and before it activated, which could only be done when all pieces were in place, the synthetic muscle system did not support its own weight, meaning I had to carry it entirely, and it was not light. The armor went on in several sections, starting with the boots, then the legs, followed by the chest, finished by the arms, and then the hands. The helmet was technically part of the list, but it wasn't required to activate the armor.

When I finally clicked the gloves into place, I could feel the suit powering up, the synthetic musculature grabbing and squeezing around me as I shifted. It wasn't quite the perfect connection, as the armor moved with just the slightest delay. It would definitely take some getting used to, but I was excited to see what it could do when I had acclimatized to it.

When I was finally done donning the armor, ten minutes had passed. Clearly, this armor was not for a quick reaction team but rather something made to let one man fight as many monsters as he could and still make it home. It would serve me well until I could make something better.

 

[Nuitblanche]

That armor may save his hide at some point so good thinking first gripping on Xcom and then building it.

 

[KillerFish]

It's always the wisest course to get a firm grounding in your initial tech base, especially in crapsack worlds where death is cheaper than food.

I shall be watching your progress with great interest.

 

[Ryune]

I'm only somewhat familiar with XCOM. Can he make MELD? I would think that it would be a prime thing to snatch up if he ever plans on building cybernetics so he can stand out less in the setting than he already does.

 

[GeekGod_of_Speed]

I reckon something he needs to make before he runs out of money is a van/truck filled with material processors to break down garbage, he now has the power sources to go off the grid completely and with the van he can get more materials for cheap

 

[KaMinSod]

MELD is the big ticket item of any cyberpunk setting. Jackson would be painting an even bigger target on his back if he introduced it to market.

But it's also a question of constructing a very delicate nanomachine compound with very limited resources. It's probably just not in the cards.

 

[AldariSiradla]

Pretty sweet to get the ball rolling.
It always starts with a good set of armor...
And a good iron.

Now he needs to upgrade production...
And resource acquisition...
Before he's Golden!

 

[Elibott12]

I'm only somewhat familiar with XCOM. Can he make MELD? I would think that it would be a prime thing to snatch up if he ever plans on building cybernetics so he can stand out less in the setting than he already does.

Click to shrink...

Plus all the gene mods, I know in game one path blocks out the other but:
1) this is cyberpunk, with corporations like Biotechnia that make Bioware and that is basically genetic cybernetics
2)I'm sure he will eventually get a tech tree that let's him have both.

That said I wonder if he had to choose one and stick with it what one he would chose. On one hand MEC, on the other stuff like Mimetic Skin or Two Hearts. But on the other other hand, it's cyberpunk and he can already get stuff like that with existing cybernetics that exist in game.